Allen Klein - the worst man in the history of music

I have to
tell this quick story about Allen Klein.Allen Klein was
a monster.Just a piece of shit.He is the guy who broke
up the Beatles, and stole the entire Rolling Stone’s catalogue.

I am sure
there are many volumes of books dedicated to his impact on music.I imagine he even has 1 or 2 defenders.We are not one of them.

Here is a
single Allen Klein story that, to me, perfectly exemplifies what a steaming
turd of humanity this guy was.

In 1971,
after the Beatles break up, George Harrison releases ‘All Things Must Pass’.On it is the great song ‘My Sweet Lord’.Turns out that the song sounds a lot like ‘He’s
so fine’.So much so that the folks who
own ‘he’s so fine’ sure thought so.So,
they sued Harrison, and his manager, Allen Klein.We aren’t here to even talk about if the song
was stolen.We are here to talk about
how Allen Klein handled it.To simplify
and make easily interesting an insanely complicated legal battle, I am going to
use sweeping generalities.Just want to
warn you, this won’t be a legal brief.

Ok, you can
look at this mashup.

So, this guy sues
Harrison for stealing his song.Allen
Klein is George’s manager (you can thank John Lennon for getting Klein the
door), and he has a really great idea.Klein’s approach is “since we are richer than god, why fight this?It would be cheaper for us to just buy the
song.In fact, it would be cheaper for
us to buy the entire company that owns this song.”

I think that
is a great idea. It’s resourceful, and a creative solution to a creative
problem.

During these
negotiations, Klein is working with the publishing arm of the Chiffon’s
song.This is where it gets super, duper,
horrible.Behind George’s back, Klein
goes ahead and buys the catalogue that owns that song.Problem solved, right?No.He
fucking turns around and sues George for plagiarizing (what is now,
technically) his song.Klein also knows
how much George is worth, so he quadruples the damages he wants… since he has
seen the Beatle’s money ledgers

Also terrible
is this dragged out for over 20 years.I
can only hope and assume if that happened here, dude would be disbarred.

To this day,
I still can’t believe anyone could do that.Any discussion about Klein being an advocate for the musicians, or a
pioneer of artistic protection… it is all invalidated by this story.I am an atheist, and an aspiring Buddhist.My point being, I do not believe in heaven or
hell (neither did George).I can tell
you this, though, Allen Klein is in hell.